Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1887-04-09
bare her bosom to all their knives and

average intelligence, ,tnat the companies
are not the owners of the railroads.
The notion that they are, is as silly rs
it is pernicious. 1t is the duty of every |
manufacturing or agricul-
tural state to open thoroughtares OF
trade and travel through her territory.
For that purpose she may take the
property Of citizens, and pay for the
work out Of her treasury. When it is
done, she may make it free to all
corners, or she may reimburse the cost
by levying a special tax upon those
who use it; or she may get the road
built and opened by a corporation or
an individual, and pay for 1t by per-
hitting the builder to collect tolls or
taxes from those who carry and travel
on it. Pennsylvania has tried all these
methods with her turnpikes, canals and
railroads. Some have been made at
her own cost aud thrown open; on
others made by herself she placed Of
have been built for her by contract, in
which some natural or artificial person
agreed to do the work for the privilege
of appropriating the taxes which she
authorized to be levied.
But in all these cases the proprietary
right remained in the state and was
held by her in trust for the use of the
people.
Those who run the railroads and
canals are always public agents. 1t is
impossible to look at them in any
other light, or to conceive how diff
ferent relation could exist; because q
railroad, which is not managed by
public agents, cannot be a public high
way. The character of these agents
and the mode OF their appointment,
even upon the same work, have differ
ed materially. The Columbia railroad,
and all the canals, were for u time un.
der the management of officers ap-
pointed by the governor, or elected by
the people, and paid out Of the state
treasury. Afterward the duty was de-
volved by the state upon persons asso.
ciated together under acts of incor-
poration who contracted to perform it
upon certain terms. The Erie and
Northeast railroad was at first run for
the state by company; the company
was relL owed from its trust for misbe
havior; the governor then took it and
appointed an officer to superintend the
work; later the governors appOintee
was displaced, with the consent Of the
legislature, and the duty was again
confided to a corporation newly char
tered.
None of these agents-neither the
canal commissioners nor the state re-
celver, nor any corporation that went
before or came after, had the slightest
proprietary right or title to the rail-
roads themselves. To say that they had
would be as preposterOus as to assert
that township roads are the private
property of the supervisors.
The legal relations existing between
the state and the persons whom she au-
thorizes to supervise her highways was
somewhat elaborately discussed by the
supreme court of Pennsylvania in the
case of the Erie and N. E. r. r. Co.
vs Casey e Casey, pp. 3O7-32D. 1t
built by authority of the state for the
general purposes OF commerce is
public highway, aiid in no sense private
property-that corporation authoriz
ed to run it is servant of the state a.
much as an officer legally appointed to
do any other public duty, as strictly
confined by the laws, and as liable te
be removed for transgressing them.
All the judges conourred in thil
opinion. The two who dissented from
the Judgment did so on the technica
ground that certain circumstances
which would have estopped the state
in a judicial proceeding, disarmed tht
legislature of the power to repeal
Neither they nor any other judge II
this country. whose authority is wortl
a straw, ever denied the doctrine fol
which [ have here cited the case
though it may have been sometimes
overlooked, ignored, or perchanc,
evaded. This principle and no othe
was the basis ofthe decision in Pennsvl
vanja and all other states, that cite
and counties might issue bonds or thei
money aud tax their people to aid il
building railways. The supreme cour
of the. United States has affirmed it il
scores of cases. 1t was 80 UNIVERSAL,
ackno " lodged that the convention o
1878 incorporated it into the constitu.
ton as part of the fundamental law
do not know upon what foundation
more solid than this any great princi
pie Of jurisprudence was ever estab
lished in free country. When in ad
dition you consider the reason OF tn
thing, and the supreme necessity of j
for the purposes of common justice. i
seems like a sin and a shame and
scandal to oppose it.
1t being settled that the railroads
and canals belong of right to the stat,
for the use OF the people, and that th,
corporations who have them in charg,
are mere agents to run them for tn,
owners, it will surely not be denie(
that all proper regulations should b,
made to prevent those agents from be.
traying their trust. The wisdom il
very plain OF those provisions in oul
constitution which put them on leve
with other public servants and forbiC
them to prostitute their functions tC
purposes merely mercenary, or to en-
gage in any business which necessarily
brings their private interests into con.
fiict with their public duty. Seeing the
vast magnitude of the affairs intruste(
to them, and the terrible temptation tt
which their cupidity is exposed, it il
certainly necessary that you hold then
to their responsibilities, and hold then
hard.
But, on the otner hand, the corpora.
tiOns deny that they 1--WE any responsi.
bility to the state, more than indivi
duals engaged in private business
They assert that the management o
the railroads being mere speculation
of their own, these thoroughtares Of
trade and travel must be run tor their
interest without regard to public right
If they take advantage of their po Ell
to Cypress the labor and overtax the
land of the state; if they crush the in.
dustry of one man or place to build uI
the prosperity of another; if they
plunder the rich by extortion, or deep.
ell the distress of the poor by discrim
mating against them, they justify them
selves by showing that all this was in
the way of business; that their interest
required them to do it; that if they had
done otherwise their fortunes woul,,
not have been so great as they are
that it was the prudent, proper and
successful method OF managing their
own affairs. This is their universal
answer TO all complaints. Their pro
tests against legislative intervention to
protect the public always take this
shape, with more or less dlstinctness OF
outline. In whatever language they
clothe their argument it is the same in
sub. tance as that with which Deme.
tri,s the silversnith, defended tho
's-n ;tity OF the mple for which lac